The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter: A One Trillion Dollar Boondoggle That is “Too Big to Fail” (g1a2d0066c1)

THE F-35 JOINT STRIKE FIGHTER: A ONE TRILLION DOLLAR BOONDOGGLE THAT IS “TOO BIG TO FAIL”
Global Revolution 1: American Revolution 2: Day 66: Communication 1
IronBoltBruce’s Kleptocracy Chronicles for 20 Nov 2011 (g1a2d0066c1)
How many examples of greed and corruption must you see before you act?

The constitutionality of “the United States Congress Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction” a.k.a. “the Supercommittee” created on August 2nd by the “Budget Control Act of 2011” is a question few of our
corporate-controlled politicians or media pundits have the intestinal fortitude to debate. And we don’t have the bandwidth to address the issue here, so we leave it for now to you, the reader, to pursue:

Regardless of legitimacy, the Supercommittee is charged with issuing a recommendation for at least $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction over the next decade by this Wednesday, November 23rd. If it fails to agree on a package or the full Congress fails to pass it, a so-called “trigger mechanism” would enact $1.2 trillion in “automatic spending cuts” which cannot be traced back to any specific Senator or Representative. This fiction thus enables our politicians to make unpopular budget cuts without any personal accountability to their constituents or the American people as a whole.

Allegedly included in those automatic spending cuts is a $600 million reduction in defense spending – which may actually be a reduction in future increases only, and therefore not really a reduction at all. Real or not, if those “cuts” are triggered then CIA Director turned Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta says one of the first casualties will be the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program:

That makes perfect sense from the perspective of those at the Pentagon and elsewhere who DON’T WANT THIS PLANE (*** watch the video series linked below ***). In the following article published by The Atlantic, author Dominic Tierney tells the rest of this shocking tale of unbridled corporate greed, political corruption and wanton Washington waste:

[Start of The Atlantic article]

THE F-35: A WEAPON THAT COSTS MORE THAN AUSTRALIA

The U.S. will ultimately spend $1 trillion for these fighter planes. Where’s the outrage over Washington’s culture of waste?

The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II is an impressive aircraft: a fifth generation multirole fighter plane with stealth technology. It’s also a symbol of everything that’s wrong with defense spending in America. In a rational world, U.S. military expenditure would focus on the likely threats that the United States faces today and in the future. And at a time of mounting national debt, the Tea Party would be knocking down the Pentagon’s door to cut waste. But the only tea party in sight is the one overseen by the Mad Hatter, as we head down the rabbit hole into the military industrial wonderland.

The F-35 is designed to be the core tactical fighter aircraft for the U.S. military, with three versions for the Air Force, Navy, and the Marine Corps. Each plane clocks in at around $90 million. In a decade’s time, the United States plans to have 15 times as many modern fighters as China, and 20 times as many as Russia.

So, how many F-35s do we need? 100? 500? Washington intends to buy 2,443, at a price tag of $382 billion. Add in the $650 billion that the Government Accountability Office estimates is needed to operate and maintain the aircraft, and the total cost reaches a staggering $1 trillion. In other words, we’re spending more on this plane than Australia’s entire GDP ($924 billion).

The F-35 is the most expensive defense program in history, and reveals massive cost overruns, a lack of clear strategic thought, and a culture in Washington that encourages incredible waste. Money is pouring into the F-35 vortex. In 2010, Pentagon officials found that the cost of each plane had soared by over 50 percent above the original projections. The program has fallen years behind schedule, causing billions of dollars of additional expense, and won’t be ready until 2016. An internal Pentagon report concluded that: “affordability is no longer embraced as a core pillar.” In January 2011, even Defense Secretary Robert Gates, a champion of the aircraft, voiced his frustration: “The culture of endless money that has taken hold must be replaced by a culture of restraint.”

The F-35 is meant to be the future of U.S. tactical airpower, but the program harks back to the Cold War, when we faced an aggressive great power rival. The world has changed. The odds of great power war have declined dramatically. We still need a deterrent capacity against China and Russia, but how much is enough? In a decade’s time, the United States plans to have 15 times as many modern fighters as China, and 20 times as many as Russia. Meanwhile, new challenges and threats have emerged. We should be focusing our military spending on the types of campaigns that we’re actually likely to face: complex asymmetric wars against weaker opponents, where manpower and intelligence are critical.

And it’s hard to square the military largesse with our rampant debt. Republicans want to slash billions from programs like early education, in Representative Jeb Hensarling’s words, to “save our children from bankruptcy.” So where is the outrage at the F-35’s outlandish cost?

Some just don’t seem to care. When it comes to defense, Republicans are the champions of big government and massive expenditure. The F-35 is too big to fail. At the same time, many Democrats keep quiet for fear of looking weak on defense – unless, like Senator Bernie Sanders, they’re from Vermont. Other politicians are bought off with pork. Defense suppliers are spread throughout dozens of states, giving everyone a reason to look the other way.

Any serious effort to balance the federal budget will require significant cuts in defense spending. And the F-35 is a prime target. The 2010 bipartisan Bowles-Simpson Commission on deficit reduction suggested canceling the Marine Corps’s version of the F-35, and halving the number of F-35s for the Air Force and Navy – replacing them with current generation F-16s, which cost one-third as much. This would save close to $30 billion from 2011 to 2015. The plan went nowhere.

We used to be content to outspend Australia on aircraft. Now we literally spend Australia on aircraft.

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SHOW ME WHAT KLEPTOCRACY LOOKS LIKE! THIS IS WHAT KLEPTOCRACY LOOKS LIKE!

Kleptocracy [klep-TOK-ruh-see]: A government or state in which those in power exploit national resources and steal; rule by a thief or thieves. See also the United States of America where, as Goethe said, “None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” Want documented examples of the corporate greed that corrupts our government and fuels the Revolution? Find dozens here, with more to come:

IT IS NO COINCIDENCE THAT OF THE LAST 14 U.S. PRESIDENTS, 7 HAVE BEEN DEMOCRATS AND 7 HAVE BEEN REPUBLICANS.

Our Kleptocracy-controlled media focuses on America’s two-year election cycles as if who wins or loses in the swinging of the pendulum was a matter of life or death, when in fact even at the Presidential level it makes no more difference than the outcomes of Monday Night Football, American Idol, Dancing With The Stars, Hillbilly Handfishing or the trial of Michael Jackson’s doctor. U.S. elections are staged primarily to give Sheeple the illusion of control so they will (a) vent their frustrations and expend their energy, emotions and resources supporting or attacking the Puppet on the Left hand or the Puppet on the Right, and consequently (b) never recognize and challenge the common omnipotent Puppetmaster.

There was no real change in 2008. There was no real change in 2010. There WILL be real change in 2012, but it won’t be coming from tele-brainwashed couch potatoes, manipulated voter lists, rigged voting machines or predetermined ballot counts. It will be coming from us…

Freedom isn’t Free! The revolution needs resources, folks: Your donations will be used to pay our living and operating expenses so we can continue to devote our full time and attention to informing the People and exposing the Kleptocracy pulling all strings Left and Right. Any amount you can spare will make a difference, so please click or go here today: